Window of Opportunity
by half-a-recess
Summary: It had been fifteen years since Hiei's last visit to Ningenkai and about fifty-five since the Tantei’s last mission. However, the window to Shuuichi Minamino’s once-bedroom remained much the same... The difference was in the current occupant.


**Oki... Well, obviously I don't own any characters that are from Yu Yu Hakusho. Yes, there will be an OC, seeing as this takes place 55 years after the events of saving the world from that large cannon thing (at the end of the manga where the former SDF captain is leading a group of people that captured Koenma and other people of Spirit World). I would appreciate reviews (you don't have to though) and I accept criticism. Just something that was floating around in my head. I'm gonna continue writing it, but it's just mainly for fun.**

He couldn't help after all these years to return to the tree next to the window and take a peek inside. His friend no longer lived there, or anywhere in Ningenkai for that matter, as Shiori had eventually died in her sleep at age eighty-three, leaving the fox spirit no reason to continue pretending to be her son. Kurama's remaining family, his step-father and step-brother, had long ago moved out of the house, and it had been extended for the wealthy couple who had come to occupy it. However, the window to Shuuichi Minamino's once-bedroom remained much the same with the old tree growing near it, a single branch reaching out to touch the sill in a friendly handshake. The oak was larger and thicker than it had been all those years ago, yet it still felt familiar under the man's feet.

At first Hiei could scarcely believe how different the Human World had become since he last visited, but then it _had_ been fifteen years after all and about fifty-five since the Tantei's last mission. After Kurama left for the Makai permanently, Hiei hadn't seen the point in coming back to this world full of a race that he disliked so much. Yes, only disliked. His brutal hatred had fizzled out eventually with nothing of real importance to fuel the fire, and when it was gone only a small smoking pile of ashes remained in his heart for humans. The only people that he knew living in the Ningenkai were Yuusuke, Kuwabara, and his sister Yukina.

There had been no real point in returning to visit Yuusuke because he knew that he former spirit detective would eventually have nothing left for him in Ningenkai after Keiko would die as all mortals do, and he would succumb to the pull of his ancestral homeland where they would meet again. Kuwabara was simply not worth going to the trouble to visit. Hiei respected the red-head's persistence and his ability as a human psychic, but he had no real desire to re-establish contact with him.

As for his sister Yukina, who had of course married Kuwabara, there was no need to visit her. His only goal for Yukina had been to find her and ensure her safety. He had no desire to reveal his relation to her, so in the end he had gone to return her tear gem to her saying that he would not pointlessly search for her brother anymore because it was obvious that he was either dead or did not wish to be found. She had agreed, thanking him for searching, and later she gave the tear gem to Kuwabara as a wedding present. She never questioned Hiei about the matter of her brother ever again and honestly halted her search; yet if she had only looked a little closer at Hiei and spotted the suspiciously familiar chain around his neck that ended in a round jewel beneath his shirt, the outcome would have been perhaps rather different. Or maybe it would not. Whether she had uncovered the truth or not was of little importance. She was safe and happy.

Why Hiei was in Human World perched on the limb next to a window to the bedroom that no longer belonged to his friend, then, was mildly puzzling. Only mildly though because he had originally been sent to Human World to round up a stray trouble-making demon and return him to the Makai, so his being in this world was not puzzling at all; in fact it was rather dull and annoying. However, the fact that he had returned to this particular window after "accidentally" killing the demon who had refused to be deported (so to speak), was rather strange.

Out of all the places and people he could have possibly visited in his short stay, he had chosen the most pointless one. There was nothing of importance left for him here, seeing as this was no longer Kurama's home, and Hiei was not one for sentimentality. Still, for some odd reason he could not help but stop by to find out what had become of the window he had crept through many a night seeking Kurama for some reason or another and of the tree in which he had spent so many nights and afternoons dozing. Perhaps it had something to do with the change.

Hiei had a nearly perfect memory. He could recall all of the sights, sounds and smells of the places he had been, especially places that he had frequently visited while trapped in the Ningenkai. Perhaps that was why he was drawn here. Everyone that was of any significance to him was much the same as he had left them, though a little older and with minor unimportant changes. This place was not. Hiei remembered entering the house and sensing his friend's presence, the smell of his mother's cooking, little noises from the other occupants of the house. Even when they were alone there was a sense of the house being _lived in_.

Now the house, though definitely occupied, showed no signs of life. In fact, it possessed a scent that Hiei had never come to associate with his friends place of residence—death. Not as though someone had died, but as though the person inside was dying, had been for a long time. A sense of hopelessness that stretched over like a dark cloud. And this cloud only hovered around the house, never leaving, as if the house itself were cursed to die or as if the dying person was always there. This also was somewhat confusing because when Kurama's mother had been sick, she had gone to the hospital where other chronically ill humans go.

Surely even the human now living inside could sense the grim reaper circling like a vulture, waiting for the frail and sickly body to finally give out, but this human who obviously had good finances was not using the resources to fight against the reaper's sickle like the rest of the population. Curiosity got the better of him and Hiei had decided to observe the situation if only to put the change into his mind and find out just what it was that was causing this house to be different from the one of his memory.

**End Chapter 1**


End file.
